Tag Archives: foodie

Rebel Mosquito

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I have a routine before I go to bed at night.  I have my shower and brush my teeth and then I cover myself in a perfume that I like to call “Eau de D’eet”, nearly poisoning myself in an attempt to keep a certain gentleman from attacking me in my sleep (and I don’t mean The Turk).  Actually I would not call him a gentleman, I call him a cad!  I call him a Rebel!  I call him “No helmet, leather jacket, motorcycle riding Rebel Mosquito”.  Yes that is his name.  He is real and he is mean.

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This cad has begun assaulting me at night.  He attacks at midnight and I am instantly awake from his high pitched buzz.  He ready for a three course meal made from my tasty O-negative blood.  I wave my arms around frantically trying to swat him away but as he is a “no helmet, leather jacket, motorcycle riding Rebel Mosquito” he obviously likes a bit of danger in his life.

I woke this morning to see that this cad, this “no helmet, leather jacket, motorcycle riding Rebel Mosquito”, had a very enjoyable Vegas-style all you can eat buffet meal at my expense and I have spent the last half an hour covering myself in a cream sold to me by the ezcane – Fenistil.  It works.  It stops the itch.  My medicine cabinet has a lot of Fenistil in it.

You know when I first arrived in Mersin last September I was assaulted by another Rebel Mosquito, perhaps a relative of my current cad.  I had so many welts on my body caused by this Rebel Mosquito that my sister in law took pity on me and we toddled down to the local hospital.  The doctor there prescribed a “serum” as I was “allergic” to mosquitos, such serum was to be injected into my ass every day for the next 5 days.  Now I don’t want to put down the Turkish medical system but firstly, is this even a thing?  Can you be allergic to mosquitos?  How is it that I survived living in Australia – Australia the mosquito capital of the world, the Land where every insect is trying to kill you – for all those years and not one doctor tells me that I am allergic to mosquitos?  Yeah.  Nope.  Secondly, there is no way you are going to inject me with some dodgy serum – the serum is going to “cure” me from my “so-called allergy”?  Pffttt!  I don’t think so!

Why do the doctors here prescribe serums for everything?  Daughter had an ear infection last month.  She was prescribed 2 needles a day for 5 days.  Are you serious?  Feck off!  There was no way on earth she was going to have these needles.  She ran from the doctor’s office and we found her at the park across the street half an hour later!  Ear infections require antibiotics (incidentally they also prescribed antibiotics) not “serum”.  Mosquito bites require a bit of cream not a feking needle in my ass for 5 days!

Tonight I am going to set an ambush for my “no helmet, leather jacket, motorcycle riding Rebel Mosquito”.  I will lie in bed clutching a can of insect spray and when he makes a move on me I am going to hit him with Detan.  I am going to condemn this cad to the torments of a fiery hell for all eternity.  I am coming for you “no helmet, leather jacket, motorcycle riding Rebel Mosquito”.  Yes I am.

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Let’s talk about Kunefe baby

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Let’s talk about you and me, let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be, let’s talk about Kunefe!

I was thinking we would talk about Kunefe.  What is Kunefe you ask?  Kunefe is a crazy ass desert served here in Mersin and throughout Turkey made of cooked cheese, syrup and icecream.  “Wwhhaaattttt?” you cry.

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Yes I know.  Separately these three food items are sensational.  Cheese?  Legendary.  Sugary syrup?  Amazing.  Icecream?  Anytime.

But incorporated into one meal?  Maybe not.

As you will no doubt recall I recently became a rock star, letting my hair down and singing at the top of my over endowed lungs at a karaoke bar in Pozcu, Mersin.  After spending a few hours singing, dancing, drinking and generally embarrassing Daughter to the point that she wanted to disown me Prince William (previously known as Capt. Awesome) decided that we should finish the evening with some dessert.  Dessert?  By 2 am I was starting to lose my groove so the idea of dessert (and its subsequent sugar rush) perked me up considerably and I was ready to go and check out our next destination.

A couple of minutes drive through the back streets of Mersin brought us to an amazing little pastanesi (cake shop) just west of Carsi (near our new amazing dentist).  Even though it was very late the place was packed but when we arrived it was clear that they knew Prince William (aka Capt Awesome) and a table magically appeared.  There were no menus, there were no options.  We sat and dessert was supplied – Kunefe.

Kunefe is well known throughout the provinces of Icel, Gazienterp, Hatay, Kilis and Adana although it is served in many Arabic countries.  Downstairs you could watch them make the dessert and, honestly, it seemed like a lot of work.  The pastry chef was very generous letting me behind the counter (obviously a friend of Prince William’s as well) and explaining to me in limited English the process.  The process is long and drawn out and I will not bother explaining it – to be honest it was all a bit fuzzy.  There was a lot of work involving tel kadayif (stringy filo pastry), a butt load of cheese, huge pans and the largest wood oven I have ever seen!  If you do want to make an attempt of this amazing dessert I suggest you go check out Ozlem’s recipe.  She is, as usual, my go-to person when attempting Turkish food but this one looks a little out of my league.

If you ever find yourself at 2 am needing a pick me up and a kebab just isn’t going to do it for you try and find a pastanesi who serves this amazing dish.  Now that Kunefe has been brought to my attention I find that just about every pastanesi in Mersin serves it.  It might be a little more difficult to track down on the west coast but it is definitely well worth the search.  Your tastebuds will thank you for it.

Plus size beauty

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Here in Turkey there are two types of women, actually three types but we will get to that another day so just go with two types.  Those who are fashionable and those who are not.

Back in Sydney I had a plethora of choices for shopping.  My cup runneth over so to speak.  But here in Mersin my cup is so dry it has cracked and turned to dust and I find myself wearing the same jeans day after day.  After day.  Why?  Because I am a Rubenesque beauty.  I am of abundance.  I have a banging body and can shimmy like a star.  Actually the real reason I am wearing the same pair of jeans day after day after day is because I am fat.  Overweight.  Plus + size and all that.  I can say it.  I am not proud of it but I will yell it from the roof top because that is me.  I have boobs.  They are good boobs.  I have an ass.  It is a fine ass.  The Turk loves my fine ass but back to the problem at hand.

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In Turkey fashion is designed for those women who are itsy-bitsy teen-weeny stick figurines (which I am not).  Daughter can walk into pretty much every trendy shop in Mersin and find herself something amazing to wear.  She hits Mavi, Berska, Pull & Bear or Zara with frequency and comes out with bags of items.  I can wander around a shopping centre all day and find . . . nothing.  It seems that if you are not the aforementioned stick creature then you should not be shopping at all.  You should begin to purchase those baggy harem pants that elderly Turkish women wear (yes I own a pair).

Last weekend I went to The Forum with Daughter where I found myself sitting outside in the sunshine while Daughter went from shop to shop looking for the perfect outfit for her birthday party this weekend.  Sure I could go with her but frankly it does my head in.  I do not love shopping.  I go shopping to purchase something and then I leave.  The wandering up and down aisles and trying on dozens of items does not thrill me – at all.  I am happy to sit outside in my jeans in the sunshine and people watch.  Since it is now summer the young women of Mersin have thrown away their dignity and their modesty and are out and about in just about flipping anything.  Tight jeans are a thing here now (actually they have always been a thing but I swear they are tighter than before).  Denim on denim is a thing.  Twinsies is a thing.  Oh wait!  Side boob is a thing here now.  I don’t think side boob should be a thing at any time but nevertheless.  Boob tubes, navel rings, inappropriately tight singlets.  Boobs!  Perky young boobs everywhere.  Yikes!  I spend all my time trying to teach Daughter that modesty and respecting your body is important and every single teenage girl is dressing like a hooker!

Jeeze I went off on a tangent again didn’t I?  OK I am back.  After Daughter finished we started to search for a few items for me.  Actually just one item.  A pair of jeans is all I am after.  I am told by helpful skinny people that there are a few shops at The Forum that caters to us plus size beauties including Mango and W.C. Waikiki so Daughter and I visited a few of these shops in the hope of me grabbing a pair of jeans for my return trip Down Under.  OMFG!  It is obvious that designers in Turkey or perhaps Europe believe that plus size beauties do not deserve to be fashionable or perhaps plus size beauties deserve to pay three times as much as itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny women for the luxury of purchasing their items which are, honestly, less than stellar to begin with.  I tried on at least five pairs of jeans in three different shops.  Generally the jeans were uglier, baggier, hanging low in the crotch and saggy in the ass.  I found a yellow pair that actually fitted me but they were yellow.  Yellow!  No one should ever wear yellow unless it is a safety vest!

*Sigh*

So I will continue to live with my one pair of jeans for the next two weeks until I get back to Sydney.  Once there, I will shop (and eat bacon).

Take-away

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Do you remember getting take-away when you were a kid.  I do.  We would go to the fish and chip shop up at Narraweena.  We would get fish and chips (duh), hamburgers and potato scallops.  It was always amazing.  Because it was take-away.  Food is always better when you don’t have to cook it.  Then home delivery became an option and my culinary world exploded.  Chinese food!  Wow.  I really am a kid from the 1970’s aren’t I?

Here in Mersin take-away and home delivery is certainly an option.  They have Dominos that delivers as well as Hungry Jacks (which is a disgusting thought).  Many of the little restaurants here in the Village also home deliver and on occasion The Turk has had people knock on the door at odd hours delivering huge bags of food but I have not felt the need to partake – until now.

A couple of nights back The Turk decided it was too hot to cook (it is definitely warming up here in Mersin – I expect I will be complaining about the heat to you sometime soon) so he made a couple of calls and arrange for home delivery.  I was excited.  What would it be?  Obviously Turkish food, no option there but Turkish food could mean practically anything.

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Two hours (!) later and Daughter and I were getting a little edgy.  The Turk is well aware that if I do not eat at my allotted hour I become quite the bitch, well add Daughter into the mix and we were both chomping at the bit for dinner.  Finally a young boy arrived carrying an abundance of food that could have fed a whole army.  He firstly handed over two bags which contained Kiymali pide, Peynir pide, salads, freshly baked bread, rice and Ayran.  Then he disappeared back down the stairs returning with the largest clay plate of Kağit Kebabi I have ever seen.  This huge plate with a circumference of 60 cm was filled with lamb, mushrooms, eggplant and handfuls of spice.  Holy moly this was a feast.  Total cost 25TL (about AU$13).

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Was it worth the 2 hour wait?  Oh.  My.  God.  Yes.  This was a taste sensory overload.  Possibly the best thing I have ever put in my mouth (don’t be dirty).

Girl on Fire – making sarma

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I think you guys already know that I am a terrible chef.  In fact chef is a word that really should not be used when describing the food that is plated up by me at any time but over the past few days I have had the opportunity to learn a few other recipes that I hope I can make by myself over the coming weeks.

With my sister in law right next door the sound of my name “J-j-ja-a-a-n-n-e-e-e” calls me to drop what I am doing and come next door.  It is a win-win situation as I learn something and I eat something.  I prefer just to eat but learning something is good too.

Songul was preparing hundreds, literally hundreds, of sarma (stuffed grape leaves) for a school excursion and needed help with the preparation.  Honestly I was not really sure that I would be doing anything useful but I have now learned that if you do something over and over . . . and over again, you get pretty good at it.

The first part of my lesson was stealing vine leaves.  Yes I was sent on a stealth mission to pilfer vine leaves from the neighbour’s vines.  Up and down the street I went with My Hurley Dog and Songul’s 4 year old to grab vine leaves under cover of taking the dog for a walk (stealing vine leaves is a big sin here as everyone loves their sarma).  After collecting 3 bags full we returned home and started separating the leaves and collecting them into groups.

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Making the dolma is actually surprisingly easy.

Ingredients –

Vine leaves, 2 bags of rice, diced onion, grated tomato (which included part of my hand unfortunately), Nene’s chilli paste (not hot), parsley, sumac, cumin, salt, pepper, dried mint and lemon salt (mincemeat optional)

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Lemon salt is an excellent invention I had never heard of before.  I actually brought some at the market quite by accident, put it in my salt grinder and nearly vomited.  As salt it is filthy but Songul puts it in water for 5 minutes and it becomes a strong lemon juice equivalent without wasting a precious lemon.  Aahhh so that’s what you do with it, shame I threw mine out after the first disaster.

First things first.  Boil some water and drop the vine leaves in it for mere seconds.  This will soften them.

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Mix all ingredients (sans vine leaves) in a bowl and you are ready to roll (literally) and once I got started I was cracking at the rolling.  Really simple.  Vine leave, small handful of mixture, roll ‘em up.  Get in time with the Turkish music that’s blasting in your ear and you really have the motion.

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Now remember that we had to make hundreds of these things so I spent the next 3 hours on the floor rolling vine leaves.  As a fine art I could whip out two a minute.  Every 10 dolmas I would wrap in string and place in the pot.  Once the pot was full it was filled with water (maybe 1 cm above the top sarma) and boiled for 30 minutes.  We ended up filling 4 pots for the school excursion the next day.  I was told that the sarma was excellent (of course) but that mine were particularly sensational (I know they were just being kind).

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I often wonder why I never did a cooking course or why my mother never taught me to cook (although she too was no chef – I didn’t really know green beans were green before I moved out of home as they were always brown *sigh*).

Spring Action

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I’ve been incredibly busy the last few days, starting with giving the house a good scrub from top to toe.  It is always so dusty here in the Village, primarily caused by the surrounding farmland but couple this with the building work next door and we are constantly covered in a thin (or thick) layer of dust.  The Turk pulled the refrigerator out and behind it was a family of dust bunnies.  They were quite happy living behind the refrigerator but sadly they had to go as they were multiplying rapidly.  I am pretty sure I never ever cleaned behind my refrigerator in North Sydney but that was more likely because I am incredibly lazy and just assumed my cleaner (or perhaps The Turk) did it for me.  I cannot believe how much dust, fluff and general grubbery builds up here.  I am forever mopping the floor and forever exfoliating the grub from my skin. The house is looking schmick at the moment though, all shiny and dust free (for today anyway).

School finishes here in 3 weeks and Daughter and I am leaving for Sydney the next morning.  I love a countdown but this one is particularly exciting for me as I am going home to see my friends and family.  I am also incredibly excited about eating food.  Australian food.  Pub lunches.  Indian banquets.  Italian.  Thai.  Mexican.  Oh.  My.  God.  You name it, Imma gonna eat it!  Don’t get me wrong I love Turkish food too but here it is just food.  Every day.  God give me some pepper sauce.  I am drooling in anticipation of a good curry.  And then there is bacon.  I miss bacon.  I know, I know we’ve been over this already but I do.  I really, really do miss bacon.  A lot.

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I’ve also been helping The Turk in the garden.  Our spring garden is blooming.  Again no pesticides, we are being as organic as we can be.  Unfortunately we had a late rain last week and we lost some of our vegetables but our green beans are coming in nicely as are our summer lettuce and our corn.  The first strawberries have appeared and our tomatoes are flowering.  The Turk has had to ‘sex them up’ which for those of you who don’t know The Turk or I this is my explanation for him out in the garden violating the flowers with his finger to release their pollen.  He is adamant that this will ensure the flower will become a tomato.  Yes he has been doing this for years with both his tomatoes and his chilli plants.  He swears that it works every single time.  It does.

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Turkey has been in the press this past week.  The devastating loss of life in Soma and the subsequent protests and riots by the public is awful to witness.  The sadness I feel for the loss of life is overwhelmed by my anger eyeballing the behaviour of the politicians and their reactions.  I am sure that wherever it is that you are currently in the world whether it is Turkey or elsewhere you would no doubt have seen the footage of Yusef Yerkel kicking a grieving member of public last week in Soma.  Did you hear that he is now on sick leave as he injured his leg?  That poor man.  Injured while on the job.  Oh how I feel for him.  How lucky that he gets to sit at home and recuperate.  OMFG!  I am sorry but he should have been arrested for assault and fired immediately.  Did you also know that only a week before the Soma accident the political party CHP requested that the mine be investigated for work-related injuries and its safety record but the current ruling party AKP vetoed the request?  Yikes!  My heart goes out to the families of those who lost someone at Soma and my sincerest hope is that their deaths bring about reform within the Turkish mining industry which has an extremely poor record.

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I know I hopped onto my soap box again.  I know I promised I wouldn’t do it but sometimes its a little difficult for me to shut my mouth when an injustice is done.

Enough from me for now.  The Turk has just brought us freshly cooked corn straight from our garden.  A little butter, a little salt and pepper and this snack is fit for a queen – and her princess.

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Icli Kofte

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Recently we walked down to visit the remaining Auntie Muriel at her home down by the deniz.  A pleasant walk on a beautiful spring day and all of us including My Hurley Dog enjoyed ourselves immensely.  A spot decision was also made to take My Hurley Dog to the beach so he could have a run and a splash (after all it is very much warm enough here).

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Arriving at Auntie Muriel’s I immediately realised we came on a good day.  Her son was returning to Germany the next morning and so she and her daughter were making Icli Kofte for his farewell party.

Icli Kofte (also known by Daughter and I as Nene Kofte) is Daughter’s absolute favourite meal.  They are bloody hard to make.  The few times The Turk and I tried they were dismal failures but everyone in the village seem to know how to make them and damn it they make it look so easy! 

Anyone who has been to a Middle Eastern or Lebanese Restaurant (or has been to the Middle East or Lebanon) would have tried the similarly made Kibbe but I know that Icli Kofte are just that little bit better (Daughter says its because it is made with love).

There is an awful lot to the recipe so if you want to give these a go I would suggest you try the recipe from Ozlem’s Turkish Table.  I have tried a few of her recipes and they always successful (well most of the time) and spot on for taste.

Referring to her recipe we do not put in walnuts at all.  We do use all the spices mentioned but we also add cumin and biber salcasi (pepper paste) to give the bulgur dough a tinge or glow. 

The dough needs to be perfect.  If it is not perfect it will be damn near impossible to make the little parcel and fill with the meat mixture.  To be honest I cannot do it.  It is bloody hard.  I sat there watching Auntie Muriel making these at such a speed all the while chatting and laughing, not a care in the world.  I tell you the last time The Turk and I tried to make them it nearly caused WWIII in our household (and it left a hell of a mess to clean up).  Oh also we add the pepper paste to the dough as well – obviously we like it spicy here in the village.

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After a couple of leisurely hours drinking cay and listening to Turkish chatter Auntie Muriel sent us on our way with a plate of her Icli Kofte for dinner.  I carried my precious cargo of kofte home and immediately started making the sauce which we add to pretty much everything.  I have mentioned the sauce before – pepper paste (yes again), garlic and oil, honestly it works with pretty much everything.

Ozlem bakes her Icli Kofte but here we either deep fry them, a favourite with the çocuklar (kids) or boil them (my favourite and obviously a lot healthier). 

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Served with a salad, for me this is a meal but to many this is merely an appetizer, either way I will finish with Afiyet Olsun or enjoy your meal.

Regaip Kandili

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Yesterday 1 May 2014 is an important day to Muslim Turks as it is Regaip Kandili (the night of Muhammad’s conception).  A Kandili (candle) is a Mosque Festival called such as the mosques will be illuminated (no doubt originally by candles although today probably not).  Last night Muslims prayed for forgiveness and hope. 

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There are in fact five holy evenings over the course of the Turkish Muslim calendar year and these five dates will change dependent upon the revolution of the moon for example Regaip Kandili will be celebrated on 23 April 2015.  The five holy evenings are:

Mevlid Kandili – the birth of Prophet Mohammad (12 January 2014)                     Regaip Kandili – the night of Muhammad’s conception (today 1 May 2014)               Miraç Kandili – Prophet Mohammad’s rising to the sky (25 May 2014)               Berat Kandili – forgiveness of the sins (12 June 2014)                                             Kadir Gecesi – the first appearance of the Koran to Prophet Mohammad (23 July 2014)

The Turk and his family are not particularly religious (although they always seem to be sacrificing animals) and they did not attend at the mosque last night however those practicing Muslims that attended worshipped and sang Mevlit which is a poem written for the birth of Prophet Mohammad. 

The Turk warned me that there would be many visitors to our home last night as part of the tradition of Regaip Kandili and it is normal practice to give Kandil Simidi or Lokma Tatlisi to visitors so yesterday Daughter (with me as her sous chef) decided to attempt making the Lokma Tatlisi for the expected visitors. 

Lokma Tatlisi is a Turkish fried sweet dough that is covered in a simple syrup (basically it is a doughnut with a syrup rather than sugar or cinnamon). 

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Daughter made a simple dough, 1 cup of warm water, 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of yeast.  Mixed together with a well-oiled wooden spoon (oiling the spoon is integral to the success of the Lokma).  She then left the dough for the length of the movie Mean Girls (firstly, how many times do I have to watch this movie?  Secondly, “That’s so fetch”.  Finally, it’s been 10 years since this movie was released?  What the hell happened to Lindsay Lohan?   Look at what drugs can do kiddies.) before getting back into it.

On our return Daughter prepared the syrup.  At this point I realised that we did not have enough sugar so Daughter sent her sous chef from house to house to get enough for the 3 cups required.  Most of the sugar is cubed so I was concerned that the syrup was not going to be successful.  Daughter added the sugar, 1 1/3 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Mixed until boiling and then left to simmer for about 20 minutes.

Preheating the vegetable oil (sous chef was getting nervous at this point) she spooned the dough in by the tablespoon, 2 minutes each side until they were a golden brown colour.  Drizzle syrup over these strange lumps of dough and eat.

Our Lokma were not pretty, they were not little balls covered in syrup.  They were weird looking pieces of dough, in fact they looked like fish pieces, one looked like a chicken’s foot, others chicken nuggets or honey chicken but I swear covered in the syrup they were still pretty tasty.  Daughter made enough for all of the family plus expected visitors and she proudly delivered them to each house last night.

I was pretty impressed with Daughter’s cooking although I was less than impressed with the mess that was left.  Syrup from one end of the kitchen to the other, and on the stairwell outside.  Thank you very much you little grub!

Seasonal Fruits

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Spring has, of course, sprung which means all the farms and gardens around the village are abundant with new, fresh and usually unknown to me fruits.

When The Turk arrived he planted trees around the garden but they are still very young and so far only our nectarine (which is a sad looking young sapling) has borne fruit.

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I have however been thieving fruit from the neighbour’s trees to taste and to introduce to you today.

The first fruit that I have never seen (or tasted) before is called as Yeni Dünya (New World) but you may know the fruit as a loquat.  There are so many trees groaning under the weight of these little beauties that I am clearly doing their owners a favour when I steal them.   I am told that you should never buy them from the market and if you cannot eat them straight from the tree don’t bother as you are wasting your time.  They do not keep well, even in the refrigerator, and can bruise very easily.  They are succulent, tangy and sweet.  Delicious.

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Another seasonal fruit in Mersin at the moment is an Erik, a super crunchy little fruit that you need to eat it now – before it ripens.  They are quite tart or sour in taste but they are very moreish.  The Turk has them with salt which I believe can soften the taste a little.  Can anyone tell me if eating unripened fruit is problematic to the digestive system?  I remember from science class (all those millennia ago) that unripened fruit is very acidic but honestly I just cannot stop eating them.  As they ripen the Erik fruit loses its zing.

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There are so many fruits currently burdening the trees and gardens around the village (mulberries, apricots, nectarines) that I now take a basket with me when I go on pilfering so that I can pick at the branches as I go by – and I am not the only one who does it as I helped an elderly lady fill a plastic bag with Kayisi  (unripened apricots) this morning.  When she had had her fill she patted my face and said “sus” which basically means keep quiet or hush.  We are now partners in crime.

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Coucous Kofte

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My next couple of posts may or may not be about food.  My sister in law has been home the last few days so I’ve been going backwards and forwards between houses drinking copious amounts of çay while watching and attempting to learn how to make a few different Turkish dishes.

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In Mersin most of the meals are simple and grain based so I’ve been cooking a lot of couscous, boreks, pirinç (rice) and the like as well as finishing off the last of the Swedish chard.  Daughter loves my sister in law’s kofte (I call them balls) made from couscous and because they are so simple I thought I would take a crack at it myself and you know what?  It really was that easy.

To start I made the couscous.  I used 3 cay cups of bulgur and 1 cup of warm water and then put it aside.  I would say that was the equivalent to 1 metric cup of coucous.

My sister in law’s recipe calls for a couple of large bunches (2) of maydanoz (parsley) and one large bunch of nane (mint).  I chopped them up quite finely and then put them aside.  I also boiled two potatoes and left them to cool.

I think the important part of the dish is the sauce.  A good serving of vegetable oil along with two soğan (onion) kimyon (cumin) for taste, and my mother in law’s chilli paste which we made last spring.  Once all are in the pot I left them to simmer for a good 15 minutes.  I added sarimsak (garlic) into my recipe (I add garlic into everything).  My sister in law was horrified but I don’t think it took away any of the flavour in fact I think it probably made it richer.

Once that sauce has simmered I add the maydanoz and nane and mix it well while it was still on the stove.  The aroma was sensational (I think it was adding the garlic).  I was feeling pretty good at this point, nothing was going to stop this from being a success.

Now it was down to mixing all the ingredients together.  It was hot and messy work and it took some time to ensure that everything did mix sufficiently well.  Once mixed I rolled them into balls and threw them on a plate. 

I had kept a small amount of the sauce aside and added some chilli powder and put it on top to finish the dish.  With a Turkish salad dinner was served. 

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To finish off this post I just want to say that my father in law (famous or infamous for hating my cooking) ate a huge plate and gave me the two thumbs up.  Progress!

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